Silver Lake’s Ties to Dell Help Firm Land Lead LBO Role

Michael Dell is extending a lucrative relationship reaching back to the late 1990s with his pick of Silver Lake Management LLC, the largest technology-focused private-equity firm, to pursue a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout of his computer company.

The link began with Roger McNamee, a Silver Lake co-founder who left the Menlo Park, California-based firm in 2004. McNamee managed an influential technology fund for T. Rowe Price Group Inc. in the 1980s, and when he moved on to form Integral Capital Partners in 1991, he invited the founders of many of the companies he’d invested in to join his new fund. Dell, Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates and Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison were among those who accepted, said three people familiar with the matter. When McNamee went on to Silver Lake, Dell invested in the firm’s first fund.